POWER CORRUPTS–IN GERMANY AND AMERICA: PART ONE (OF TWO)

“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it.”

—Lord Acton

Syndicated columnist Mark Shields andNew York Timescolumnist David Brooks appear every Friday on thePBS Newshourto review the week’s major political events.

On March 25, 2016, Shields—a liberal, and Brooks, a conservative—came to some disturbingly similar conclusions about the character of Republican Presidential front-runner Donald Trump.

As the business magnate moved ever closer to winning the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination, both columnists appeared increasingly dismayed.

David Brooks and Mark Shields

Eerily, their conclusions about Trump’s character echoed those reached by former Panzer General Heinz Guderian about German dictator Adolf Hitler.

Guderian created the concept of motorized blitzkrieg warfare, whereby masses of tanks and planes moved in coordination to strike at the vital nerve centers of an enemy.

As a result, Guderian enabled Hitler to conquer France in only six weeks in 1940, and to come to the brink of crushing the Soviet Union in 1941. He recounted his career as the foremost tank commander of the Third Reich in his 1950 autobiography, Panzer Leader.

Heinz Guderian

Moderator Judy Woodruff opened the discussion by alluding to the blood feud then raging between Trump and his fellow Republican, Texas U.S. Senator Eduardo “Ted” Cruz.

Both were seeking their party’s Presidential nomination—and both were ruthlessly determined to attain it.

Cruz accused Trump of being behind a recent National Enquirer story charging him with having a series of extramarital affairs.

An anti-Trump Super PAC posted on Facebook a photo of a scantily-clad Melania Trump—his wife. The photo had been taken 16 years ago when, as a model, she posed for British GQ. Its publication came just ahead of the primary caucuses in sexually conservative Utah, which Cruz won.

Trump quickly responded on Twitter, accusing the Cruz campaign of leaking the photo, warning Cruz: “Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.”

Cruz struck back, defending his wife, Heidi, and calling Trump a coward. The next day, Trump retweeted an unflattering image of Mrs. Cruz.

This “war of the wives” had cost Trump dearly in his standing with American women. In March, a Washington Post/ABC News poll showed that 64% of women felt highly unfavorably disposed toward him.

DAVID BROOKS: “The Trump comparison of the looks of the wives, he does have, over the course of his life, a consistent misogynistic view of women as arm candy, as pieces of meat.

Donald Trump

“It’s a consistent attitude toward women which is the stuff of a diseased adolescent. And so we have seen a bit of that show up again.

“But if you go back over his past, calling into radio shows bragging about his affairs, talking about his sex life in public, he is childish in his immaturity. And his–even his misogyny is a childish misogyny….

“He’s of a different order than your normal candidate. And this whole week is just another reminder of that.”

HEINZ GUDERIAN: As Hitler’s self-confidence grew, and as his power became more firmly established both inside and outside Germany, he became overbearing and arrogant. Everyone appeared to him unimportant compared to himself.

Previously, Hitler had been open to practical considerations, and willing to discuss matters with others. But now he became increasingly autocratic.

Judy Woodruff asked Mark Shields if the uproar over Donald Trump’s disdain for women could really hurt his candidacy.

MARK SHIELDS: The ad featuring a scantily-clad Melania Trump “elicited from Donald Trump the worst of his personality, the bullying, the misogyny, as David has said, brought it out.

“But I think it’s more than childish and juvenile and adolescent. There is something creepy about this, his attitude toward women.

“Take Megyn Kelly of FOX News, who he just has an absolute obsession about, and he’s constantly writing about, you know, how awful she is and no talent and this and that.

Megyn Kelly

“And I don’t know if he’s just never had women—strong, independent women in his life who have spoken to him. It doesn’t seem that way….”

MARK SHIELDS: “She just asked him tough questions and was totally fair, by everybody else’s standards.”

HEINZ GUDERIAN:Hitler’s most outstanding quality was his will power. It was by this that he compelled men to follow him. When Hitler spoke to a small group he closely observed each person to determine how his words were affecting each man present.

If he noticed that some member of the group was not being swayed by his speech, he spoke directly to that person until he believed he had won him over. But if the target of his persuasive effort still remained obstinate, Hitler would exclaim: “I haven’t convinced that man!”

His immediate reaction was to get rid of such people. As he grew increasingly successful, he grew increasingly intolerant.

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